By the Way, His Name is Nathan.

I wrote a poem today. See if you can discern what motivated me.

* * *

Making Room

This man deserves a poem--
sincere, accessible, beautiful--
but I am writing blanks.
It's too much, too good.
It can't sink in yet;
there's not enough room for it.

I have just enough language
to describe the surface of the moment:
He let me probe around in his consciousness,
and it was well-lit,
comfortable, Hellenic.
He is a work of art, except for that piercing
(it's like trying to improve Winged Victory
by giving it a cheap necklace).

I gave him the guided tour of myself,
and later I noticed:
things weren't quite where I left them.
Just when I had everything
precisely where I wanted it--
each aria and iambic fragment
hanging in the perfect place--
a new, wonderful
moment needs accomodation.

I already know I won't be able
to stop thinking about him.
The experience will absorb thought,
and soften,
And I'll find the perfect place for him.
Maybe then I'll write an ode.
But people, unlike stacks of memorized verses,
never stay where you put them.